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dnak
04-25-2007, 10:23 AM
Hi, just wondering...

We have just been assigned a big job including rigging and building + lipsynch character and putting this into live footage, handheld camera. The spot will be approx 3 minutes long including separate graphics and we will also be in charge of the shoot on location. What we want to achieve is something similar to www.ericlerner.com and his Mr Citymen. Been doing som tests and everything seems to be working fine, including putting this guy into the live footage using Matchmover Pro 4.0. Everything will be shot in HD 1920x1080 wich will demand som rendering power. And I have some questions regarding this whole process.

1. We currently dont have any kind of render farms inhouse, therefore we are going to invest in 2-3 computers to set up a small render farm, Ive done some research and hopefully Ive got it right. Im pretty sure that theese computers dont need to be top-notch, therefore buying 2-3 cheap computers for the rendering altogether for under 1000$, all with 3ghz, because we will only be using theese computers for the rendering the spec. dont really seem to matter, or do they?
What are youre suggestions on a simple render farm, is this enough?

2. To set up a render farm, Ive done research on this and it really seems like a pain in the ass to get all things together, but hopefully our solution will work good enough, for the rendering process we will be using Mental Ray with multiple pass rendering, Our solution is to install Maya 8.5 on all computers and setting up the network preferences, simple and easy, but will this work?

3. Compositing, we will be using After Effects to composite it all together, after rendering out our character on the alpha channel we will composite it with the live footage. And also do all the color correction in here. In some of the shots people will be passing by or perhaps a table will stand in the way for our character, to solve this Im thinking about rotoscoping, (frame-by-frame) with mask or vector paint on the matte channel in after effects. Is this totally wrong? should we do this in maya instead? I dont think so, but Im hearing of new techniques every day and just wondering how a professional studio solves this issue. Any suggestions?

If you have any suggestions or comments on our workflow please dont hesitate to post them!
/Daniel Lundh
www.actionfiction.se
Aneks
04-27-2007, 01:35 AM
3. Compositing, we will be using After Effects to composite it all together, after rendering out our character on the alpha channel we will composite it with the live footage. And also do all the color correction in here. In some of the shots people will be passing by or perhaps a table will stand in the way for our character, to solve this Im thinking about rotoscoping, (frame-by-frame) with mask or vector paint on the matte channel in after effects. Is this totally wrong? should we do this in maya instead? I dont think so, but Im hearing of new techniques every day and just wondering how a professional studio solves this issue. Any suggestions?




most big studios also break renders down into seperate passes for better control. this can help wiht tight render deadlines as you may only have to re-render 1 pass to get better control. Maya 8.5 ha nice render layers options. In terms of integration, it sounds like rotoscoping is going to be your best bet. Roto in AE is a little painful but works fine. I guess it's just a matter of getting in there and doing the work.

good luck
dnak
04-27-2007, 08:22 AM
Hi, and thanks,

Seperate passes you say, whats the difference between "multiple pass rendering" and "seperate pass rendering" then? From what i know, multiple pass rendering is when you render out the shadow, illumination, etc. on seperate passes. So it guess its the same thing right?

Whats your thought about render farms? we need a small one, and when start looking around on "how to set up a render farm" people always show pics of old computers standing in a closet, collecting dust, as they often say, its not the computer, its how many.. See link..

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1847365,00.asp


And we really do need all the "good luck" we can get, so thanks!
Aneks
04-28-2007, 12:43 AM
multi pass/ seperate pass same thing !


render farms.... not too good with this myself. I think it is more about having a software solution which will manage the tasks of rendering and assigning frames. maybe look at something like Smedge or Muster (google them). In terms of machines, it REALLY depends on budgets. There are all sorts of solutions and articles out there which discuss this. If you have the money a number of people make dedicated render farm solutions like Boxx technologies or Dell.
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